Free Spirit
by DominoTyler
Summary: The first in my multi-part fic about Ferb's life and how it eventually leads him to Vanessa, and then several years after that. Mostly a mixmox of one-shots. Eventual Ferbnessa! Slightly AU...any differences from the show are completely intentional.
1. Prologue

**Hello! Well, this is part one of what is going to be a several part story leading through Ferb's life, and skipping over the summer in which the show is set since, well, you've seen that! Eventual Ferbnessa! ^^**

**To be honest, I haven't seen every single episode, mainly just season one, though there are a few episodes I haven't seen, but with the help of you guys correcting me and Phineas and Ferb Wiki, I'll do my best! ^^**

**Here is the prologue for all of the parts. I have absolutely no idea how long this will go on, but it will go on! It will probably be a bunch of one-shots connecting the relationship, with several part one-shots along the way. It will make more sense when we get through with it…**

**Also, for ages: it has been said that they are "less than 15." It is said several times, not in the show, that they are nine, and occasionally implied that they are 10, and in one episode it is implied that they are 12. For this story, Vanessa (and, therefore, Candace) is 15 (since she was 15 all of the way up until Dude, we're getting the band back together) when Phineas and Ferb are 14. 1 year apart at all times. There. Doesn't that make things so much easier?**

**I don't own Phineas and Ferb or any other recognisable material.**

…

**Prologue**

…

**Ferb POV**

…

My mother was a free-spirit. At least, that's what everyone's always told me, whenever I brought her up out of curiosity. I have her entire story, pieced together from everything I've ever been told about her.

My father met Tammy when he'd been visiting America. She'd nearly ran him over in her hippie-bus, and, as an apology, she'd invited him to supper in her van. My father said it was love at first sight, and he said that, despite having naturally green hair, she had been so, so beautiful. After his three month vacation in America had been over, my father had asked Tammy for her hand in marriage, and she'd accepted, moving to London with him.

I was born only fifteen months after their marriage, and she was gone two years later. Without a single word, she had gotten up in the middle of the night and she had left.

I hardly remember her. I can still see her face sometimes. I can vaguely remember being outside with her as she hung laundry on a clothesline one time, and I remember her holding me tightly, but other than that, there are no memories for me to recollect.

Because my father had always said Tammy was a "free-spirit" and that's why she had left, I had officially decided that I would never start a relationship with one of these "free-spirits." How difficult could it be?

But through my life, I realised that it would be incredibly, ridiculously difficult, and there was no way I could have prevented my falling in love with a free-spirit.

This is my life story. This is the story of how I, Ferbian Fletcher, fell in love with the lovely and free-spirited Vanessa Doofenshmirtz. Everything I've ever done led me to how I was when I met her and how my life with her went on. That is why I must start from the very beginning.

…

**Very short, but it is only a prologue. The Ferbnessa won't come in for a while, but if you stick with me, I promise it'll be quite worth it! Thank you for reading, and if you think I should keep up with this, please drop me a review! I'm going to post chapter two straight away with this one, because I think this isn't really enough to give you the whole story.**


	2. Greatest Adventure

**Chapter dos for you! ^^**

…

"Good morning, Ferb! Did you sleep well?"

Ferb said nothing, as was per usual, but he looked up at his cheerful father and blinked happily at him, quite content, relaying that he had, in fact, slept very well.

"That's good to hear," Lawrence Fletcher replied, lifting his four year old son into his arms and taking him down into the kitchen for breakfast.

He was here greeted by his Gran and Grandpa, who ruffled his hair and pointed out his breakfast. Ferb sat down and began to eat while his Grandpa picked up the paper, his Gran continued cooking, and his father began speaking, apparently to him.

"Do you understand, Ferb?" he said, and Ferb only blinked. Yes, he understood. They would be leaving London. They would be going to America, to live with Linda, the nice lady that his father had been visiting with for a very long time, almost as long as he could remember. Ferb liked to think of Linda as his mummy, because she acted like how he knew a mummy was meant to act.

He only wished it didn't mean he'd have to leave his Gran and Grandpa. He would miss them very much, but his father made sure he knew they would see Gran and Grandpa again, so he was okay with moving in with Linda. He knew Linda had a son named Phineas, who was really nice and had a fun toy train, and a daughter named Candace, who was nice as well, but a little bit crazy. That was okay, though.

His father smiled. "Very good. Well, we have to catch the plane this afternoon, so you'll have to take your nap on the plane. Are you excited to ride on an aeroplane?"

Ferb blinked and pointed to his toy aeroplane.

Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Yes, Aeroplane. They fly up high in the air, and when you look out the window, you can see the whole world! Shouldn't that be exciting? Oh, you'll have so much fun!"

Ferb blinked, becoming very excited. He couldn't wait to ride on this aeroplane.

When Ferb had finished his breakfast, Gran gave him a kind smile and a pat on the face. "Why don't you go into the den and play with your toys while your father and I have a chat?"

Ferb got off of his chair and headed to the living room, but he didn't play with his toys. He listened very hard to what his father, grandpa and grandmother were saying.

"You're sure this is a good idea? I mean, the girl was a diva back in the day."

Lawrence rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, mother. She's completely different now. Good different. She's perfect."

"She has two children by a man she wasn't married to."

"And they're very well-behaved children," Lawrence replied. "She raised them very well. Why won't you just give her a chance?"

"You asked me to give the green haired girl a chance, too," Gran replied with a sigh, turning to the sink to begin washing the breakfast dishes.

"I'd only known her a few months," Lawrence replied. "I admit she was a mistake, but I don't regret anything. I never would have gotten Ferb if I hadn't married Tammy. I've known Linda for three years. She's perfect."

"She's human and humans make mistakes, like you said," Gran stated. She sighed again. "I just don't want to see my baby getting hurt again. And I want someone absolutely near-perfect for that darling little boy."

"She's very near perfect," Lawrence said with a dreamy sigh. "And she and I have much more in common than Tammy and I did. And I love her."

Gran shook her head. "Well, I guess as long as you're happy, I'm happy. Just don't go pulling poor Ferb into things that could hurt him, alright?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Lawrence replied, standing from the table. "Well, I'd better get Ferb and me to the airport. Thank you so much for letting us stay with you all these years. I'll miss you ever so much."

"We love you, Lawrence," said Gran.

Grandpa stood as well and received a hug, and then Lawrence dropped off Ferb to receive his goodbyes. Ferb felt sad, knowing he wouldn't be able to see Grandpa and Gran every day anymore, but he was also excited, for father had said this could be their greatest adventure ever, and he liked adventure. So he decided to be excited rather than sad.

…

The aeroplane was just as exciting as father had said it would be. Ferb could look out the window and, though he couldn't see the whole world, he could see quite a bit of it. It soon turned to water, and then he fell asleep, and when he woke up it was daytime again, and the aeroplane would be landing soon. And then their adventure would begin.

…

**So here it was, chapter 2! Hope you enjoyed it! ^^**


	3. Breakfast in America

**Hey everybody! ^^ Long time no see! It's my fault for having like 490823094823 fanfictions all at once…**

**Well, here's the next chapter! Hope you enjoy it!**

…

Ferbian Fletcher and his father had been living in America for two whole hours now, and Ferb was hungry. And confused. While he felt awake and ready to play outside, it was dark and the stars and the moon were out. His father told him that the time in America was different than the time back home and that it would take a while to get used to. Ferb hoped he would get used to it soon, because going to sleep when he was hungry and not tired was not something Ferb wanted to do for his whole life.

The next morning, after Ferb had slept only a little bit, Mr. Fletcher told him that they were going to go out for breakfast with Linda and Candace and Phineas. Ferb liked Phineas. He always had, ever since he met him. He hoped Phineas would bring his train. Ferb brought his aeroplane, just in case.

After father had dressed him and tied his shoes and Ferb made sure he had his aeroplane in his pocket, father took his hand and they left their hotel room.

They rode in the elevator from floor 3 to floor 1. Ferb liked to watch the numbers count down. He wished they were on a higher floor, so he could count some more, but he figured counting the number of steps until they made it to the restaurant would suffice.

It took him 804 steps to reach the restaurant. At least, he thought so. He sometimes forgot his numbers and made up numbers to start off from again. He would count again on the way back; just to be sure he got it right.

Linda was already there with Candace and Phineas, who had indeed brought his train. Father placed him in the chair beside Phineas and sat down right on the other side of him.

Phineas smiled. "Hello, Ferb. Are you excited to live at my house?"

Ferb looked at his father, then back at Phineas, and he nodded. Phineas' eyes brightened considerably.

"Since we're gonna be brothers, you can play with my train."

Ferb took the train, then, giving his aeroplane a glance, he handed it over to Phineas, who smiled widely and made aeroplane noises. Ferb was sure the plane he had been on the day before made no such noises, but he didn't point it out to Phineas. Instead, he rode the train neatly along the outside of his menu, until the waitress came over and took their drink orders.

"…and he'll have chocolate milk," Ferb heard father say, and he sat back happily. He loved chocolate milk.

When the waitress returned again with their drink and asked for their orders, father ordered him a plate of waffles with whipped cream and cherries, and his stomach felt excited. He loved cherries.

After father had ordered for him, Phineas leaned over to his mother and whispered in her ear.

Linda smiled at the waitress. "Phineas will have the same thing."

Ferb looked at Phineas, who was happily playing with his aeroplane again. He liked Phineas. He was glad he was going to be his new brother.

**...**

**I don't know if I said…but these chapters could range anywhere for 300 to 3,000 words. It all depends. I hope you enjoyed this anyways! ^^**

**For updates and other info, follow my tumblr made specifically for my fanfiction, domino-tyler-fanfiction. I take fanfiction and fanart requests and **_**submissions!**_


	4. First Encounter

Candace was five years old and, therefore, in Kindergarten. Ferb wished he could go to Kindergarten with her, but father told him that he'd have to wait a whole 'nother year before he was old enough to attend. He and Phineas would be in the same class.

But Candace was in Kindergarten now, and she had lots of friends there. It was a few weeks after Linda – who he'd begun calling "mum" – and father's wedding, and it was now Candace's birthday party. She had all sorts of friends over. One friend, a young girl named Vanessa, was the only girl who wasn't beginning to irritate Ferb. All of the other girls were loud and were, at the current time, covering themselves in glitter and "princess clothes" (though he had never seen the princess on the telly dress in such garb). But this other girl, Vanessa, was watching from the couch, where she sat with a book that she wasn't reading. She didn't look sad to be left out. In fact, she looked completely indifferent to not dressing up in the frilly clothing. She was just watching. In sort of the way Ferb liked to.

Phineas was laughing as the girls dressed him up in a little tuxedo. Ferb had shaken his head when they'd held one up for him. He had been watching from the side as well, similar to the way Vanessa was now. Noticing that she was by herself and not sure if she wanted company, Ferb took up the seat beside her and didn't say anything.

She looked sideways at him but didn't say anything for a long while.

"You're Candace's new brother?" she said finally, and Ferb nodded.

She turned fully to face him. She peered at him through very heavily lidded eyes. "Why is your hair green?"

Ferb didn't know how to reply. People generally didn't ask him this question, so he never was sure what to say. He shrugged.

"Oh," she replied, her face emotionless. At least, Ferb thought it was emotionless. But when he looked a little harder, he noticed she was smiling. He hadn't seen her smile at all since she'd gotten to the house that morning.

He hoped she and Candace stayed friends. He really liked Vanessa. He hoped he'd get to see her again and again.

…

**Thanks for reading, guys! ^^**

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	5. Perry the Platypus

Life in the Flynn-Fletcher was much more chaotic than anyone was used to, especially Ferb. He wasn't used to such chatter, to Candace's loud music and loud toys and loud television, to Phineas' inability to concentrate on any one thing for an amount of time, for his father's distraction and to the strange things Linda was always insisting he do.

And he didn't get to see Vanessa again and again, as he'd hoped he would.

But he was enjoying himself, and he wondered when the feelings of being on vacation would end. He wanted to feel like he was at home, not like he would be headed back to Gran and Grandfather in just a few days. He was restless, and he wasn't sleeping well. Each night he would wake stay up late – or early, depending on how you looked at it – and do not much of anything in particular. He would practice his reading – which he was really very good at, despite never having attended school – or tying his shoes, or deciding which way he liked his hair better, or organising sock drawers, or colouring pictures, which was something he very much enjoyed. He also liked to sit outside and listen to the summer insects making their strange night time sounds.

It was not a lonely time, but every so often he wished he had someone to sit with him in the silence. He didn't want to wake the others, of course. Maybe if they had some sort of a pet, he could sit outside or do his night time things with some company?

He thought of all of the animals they could keep as pets, and even a few that weren't very common as pets. He flipped through animal books. He was very inclined towards some sort of farm animal, but that was absolutely out of the question – there was nowhere for them to keep such a pet. A dog might be simpler but there were far too many breeds to search through, and finding a cat with the right personality would be difficult.

One morning, Ferb approached his father with an advertisement for the local pet store, stating that with the adoption of one of their new-born pets, they would receive food, toys and a cage at 75% off.

"Ah, a pet!" said Lawrence with a smile. "What a splendid idea, old chap. That will really get this place feeling like home. We'll visit the pet store this weekend and you three children can pick out any animal your heart desires. Unless it's a spider or a reptile, in which case the answer is no."

That narrowed it down a bit, and Ferb sat awake at night thinking of all of the interesting pet options he had at his fingertips. He hoped that he and Phineas and Candace could all agree on something.

Saturday morning Ferb was awoken by his father gently shaking him by the shoulders.

"Todays the day, old chap," Lawrence said with a smile on his face. "Get dressed and we'll head on over to the pet store."

…

Ferb started at the front of the store and planned to work his way through to the back. There were ferrets in a little enclosure right by the door, and rabbits in cages, but they were very finicky and smelled weird, so Ferb simply peered at them for a moment and walked on while Candace begged for a rabbit. Next he looked at all of the interesting fish, but he remembered winning a goldfish at a fair the year before, and it had died within three days. He'd been devastated, and fish seemed like far too unreliable a pet. So he kept on.

He passed the reptiles and approached the birds. While Phineas thought they were very interesting and fun and liked that they could repeat what he spoke to them, Ferb was afraid that if he were to have a pet like a bird he couldn't take it outside with him, for fear that it might fly away. So he passed by the birds and looked at the gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice and rats, but nothing seemed to catch his attention.

The cats didn't appear to like him very much, and he was about to head out back to look at the dogs when something caught his eye.

It was green, only a few shades different than his very own hair, and its eyes were all over the place. It had a tail like a beaver, but a bill like a duck, and Ferb had never even heard of such a creature in all his life.

"What's that?" Phineas said, awed as the two approached the cage.

Phineas' eyes went wide as the little creature's own eyes looked at bother himself and Ferb at the very same time.

That's when Ferb knew that this pet was very special, and it was the one he wanted to take home.

…

"You'll have to name it," Linda said over Candace's grumbling as they drove home. "What do you even name a platypus?"

"I kind of like Bartholomew," Phineas said absently as he watched the strange animal resting in Ferb's lap.

Ferb crinkled his nose, but didn't say anything.

"That's a strange name," Linda replied. "But how about we keep thinking?"

Phineas agreed, and that night at supper, they all pondered what they should call their interesting new pet.

"How about boring?" Candace mumbled as she poked at her supper.

"I still like Bartholomew," Phineas said.

Lawrence turned to his son with a smile. "What do you think, Ferb?"

Ferb took a bite of his supper and chewed, swallowed, and took a drink of milk before he finally decided that he wanted to answer.

"Perry."

"Perry the Platypus," Linda said with a smile. "It's perfect. What do you think, Phineas?"

"It's so cool!" he exclaimed. "Good thinking, Ferb! Hey, Perry!"

The platypus made a strange sound in his throat, and Ferb knew he had chosen the right name for his new pet.

Now maybe this place would begin to feel like home.


	6. Orange Juice

It was a hot summer day. Candace was making lemonade and Phineas was coloring pictures. They both wanted to stay inside and keep cool, but that was boring, and Ferb wanted to play outside. So he left his house and put on his roller-skates, with Perry at his side, and he rode up the road to the park. His father only allowed him to go if he had Perry with him for protection, and it could only be the park up the road, because then he could see him from the house.  
He brought along his backpack, in which he kept his sketchbook and crayons, juice-boxes, fruit snacks, and a book to read.  
The park had about 10 other kids playing there. Ferb removed his roller-skates and pulled his shoes from his backpack. Then he set his belongings on the bench and went to play for a while before he would come back for his snack, which he hoped to enjoy beneath the big shade tree on the side of the park.  
First he decided to go down the tall slide. He climbed all the way up, and then slid all the way down. He didn't like the hot metal, so he went instead to the jungle gym. Only once he got to the top, he wasn't quite sure what to do, so he got back down. He tried the monkey bars, but they only made his palms hurt. Then he went to the swings, but he had no one to try to get higher than, so he returned to the bench with his bag. He realized then that the park wasn't very fun when one was by himself. He communicated this silently with Perry. Though he knew it probably wasn't possible, he liked to believe that Perry and he shared a telepathic bond, so the things he thought that he wanted to say to Perry, Perry could hear. It was very comforting.  
Ferb decided it was about time for his snack, so he picked up his bag and his skates and went over to the shade tree, only to find that someone was already there.  
It was Vanessa.  
She squinted up at him through the sunlight, and flipped her hair out of her face, which was mostly expressionless. "Hey," she said, her voice a bit scratchy. "I know you. You're Ferb."  
Ferb stared at her in reply.  
"Candace's brother?" She waited for a response. "That's right. You don't talk very much." She closed the book that she had previously had open on her lap. "You can sit down if you want to."  
Ferb did, taking the seat right beside her. He glanced at the book she had been reading. Frankenstein. Ferb had read it a few weeks ago, though he'd had to have most of it explained by his father. He wondered if Vanessa was so smart that she could read a book with such a high grade level all by herself, or if someone would be explaining it to her as well.  
Ferb opened his backpack and noticed that he had not just one but several juice boxes, and a handful of fruit snack packages. Ferb pulled out one of each for him and then, after only a moments contemplation, offered one of each to Vanessa.  
She gave him a quick look, trying to figure out why he was giving her them, before she said, "Thanks." She poked her straw into her juice box and took a pull at her straw. She gave a relieved sigh. "Wow, that hit the spot. It's so hot out here."  
Ferb looked away from her and our at the children playing on the playground, casually eating his fruit snacks.  
"My air conditioner broke and my dad started arguing with the repair man about it, so I came here. I don't like to hear people arguing. It makes me mad, and kind of sad, too."  
Ferb heard from Candace that Vanessa's parents had recently gotten a divorce. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he thought it had something to do with arguments. Looking at her face, Ferb saw that she looked very sad about this. He reached out before he could even think, something he rarely did, act without thinking, and he placed his hand on hers.  
She looked a little surprised at first, but then she smiled at him, and they sat silently for a while.  
Soon Ferb's father arrived to take him and Perry home, while the two of them had been reading side-by-side for a while.  
"Thank you for the juice," she said as she waved. "It's my favorite flavor, orange juice. I hope I get to see you again real soon."  
Ferb waved in reply and offered up a smile. Because he, too, hoped to see her again real soon.

* * *

Thanks for reading! ^^ It's been a while, hasn't it? I'll try and stop taking such long breaks.


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